If You Really Cared, You Would Stop Watching the Oscars

Hollywood has always been shameless about their racism, but this year truly takes the cake: the Academy Award nominations were announced this morning and in an unexpected (not really) repeat of last year, every actor and actress nominated is white. What makes this even worse is the fact that 2015 had great performances by actors and actresses of color, yet the Academy chose once again to ignore them in favor of their typical, bland choices.

Let’s take a look at our blindingly white nominees: for Best Actor the contenders are Bryan Cranston for Trumbo, Matt Damon for The Martian, Michael Fassbender for Steve Jobs, Eddie Redmayne for The Danish Girl and Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant. The biggest joke here has to be Redmayne’s nomination. Redmayne, who won the Oscar for Best Actor last year for The Theory of Everything, returns this year in one of the baitiest movies of 2015. Yet his performance, which was often criticized for being artificial at best still managed to get a nomination for Best Actor. Yikes.

Now for our all blonde, all white Best Actress nominees we have Cate Blanchett for Carol, Brie Larson for Room, Jennifer Lawrence for Joy, Charlotte Rampling for 45 Years and Saoirse Ronan for Brooklyn. Joy marks Lawrence’s fourth Oscar nomination, making her the youngest person ever to be nominated four times. That fact that Hollywood’s overbearing love for her allowed that to happen is both equally laughable and sad and I could write an entire article on how wrong they are for it, but that’s for another time.

The Academy loves to fake their progressiveness by nominating LGBT-related films such as Carol and The Danish Girl, but where’s the love for Tangerine? The film has everything the Academy loves—indie darling (looking at you, Room), great performances, unique filmmaking—but wait, one thing is missing. The leads aren’t white and cisgendered so they can’t “transform” themselves into a lesbian or transgender for the sake of the performance! Instead of erasing transgender representation in favor of casting a cisgender man (hello, Danish Girl), Tangerine is by led Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor, two transgender actresses of color who have gotten higher praise for their acting than the performances in The Danish Girl yet the Academy turns a blind eye to them in favor for a film that’s directed by a guy who only releases movies right in time for awards season. Strange, huh?

The Best Supporting Actress nominees are Jennifer Jason Leigh for The Hateful Eight, Rooney Mara for Carol, Rachel McAdams for Spotlight, Alicia Vikander for The Danish Girl and Kate Winslet for Steve Jobs. Boring, boring, boring! Mya Taylor has already been nominated for critics’ awards for Best Supporting Actress (she also has a pending nomination at the Independent Spirit Awards) and won a few, so why is she being ignored? Where is Tessa Thompson for Creed, Gugu Mbatha-Raw for Concussion? Why is it that the only time black actresses get nominated for Best Supporting Actress, they’re playing the role of a slave (Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave) or maid (Octavia Spencer, The Help)? But the second they’re not playing an oppressed historical character, the Academy suddenly doesn’t notice their performances.

I saved the final category of Best Supporting Actor for last because this one is the most angering: Christian Bale for The Big Short, Tom Hardy for The Revenant, Mark Ruffalo for Spotlight, Mark Rylance for Bridge of Spies and Sylvester Stallone for Creed. Who’s missing who should definitely be there? Idris Elba for Beasts of No Nation. Not only did Elba give a fantastic performance, he has been nominated for every major award this year—Golden Globe, SAG, BATFA—wouldn’t it be common sense to nominate him for the Oscar as well? Obviously not because the Academy snubbed him in favor for Tom Hardy, who wasn’t even nominated for any major awards beforehand. They literally pulled that nomination out of their ass and in doing so, made this the whitest awards season since last year. Good job, Academy, good job.

These nominations are just so contradictory and offensive—Creed, which was one of the most critically and commercially successful films of 2015, has only been recognized for the performance of the one white actor in the movie. Michael B. Jordan’s performance has been completely ignored and snubbed in favor for Eddie Redmayne’s overacting and a bunch of other performances that weren’t even seen by the general audience. Every Best Actor movie that has been nominated this year flopped at the box office—except for one (possibly two). Steve Jobs—flopped. The Danish Girl—flopped. Trumbo—flopped. The Revenant was the latest movie to be released (Christmas Day) and so far it’s grossed $77.9 million on a $135 million budget. The Martian is the only commercially successful movie of the five. Why am I bringing up budgets and grosses again? Because audiences are tired of seeing white male led movies. Nobody cared about the first Steve Jobs movie with Ashton Kutcher and nobody cared about this one either. Some of the most critically and commercially successful movies of 2015 were minority led—Straight Outta Compton, Creed, even Furious 7.

This notion that audiences want to continue to watch old white actors do the same thing they do every year is dying—we don’t care about them. We want fair representation. And fair representation isn’t just nominating one group of minority actors either. What about Asian actors, Latinx actors, why are they blatantly ignored every year? Why does Hollywood continue to pretend that only white actors exist? It’s absolutely ironic that the Academy’s promo posters for this year feature Lupita Nyong'o and Jamie Foxx with their Oscars but then they turn around and nominate all white actors two days later. Trying to make the winners look more diverse than they actually are, right?

This racism has to stop. The first step is to speak up but the next step is to stop watching these awards shows. Don’t give the Academy the attention—they don’t deserve it. Think about how impactful it would be if we continued to criticize the Academy for ignoring minority actors and actresses and to top it off, killed their views when the show actually comes on? Stop hate watching and just stop watching it altogether. Actions speak louder than words.